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Hitting the Wall: For Marathon Charities, Numbers Are Slowing

A mass of runners in Central Park last Nov. 4, the day of the canceled New York City Marathon.Credit
Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

By this time of year, the height of fall marathon season, the e-mails have long piled up: marathon aspirants seeking charitable donations from family and friends to help them secure a spot in a particular race. On race days, charity logos on runners’ gear have become as ubiquitous as mile markers, an integral part of an event’s feel-good message of fitness and philanthropy.

But some race and nonprofit organizers are worried that after years of booming, the charity-running industry may be wheezing like a runner at Mile 25.

Consider YAI, a nonprofit focused on helping those with developmental disabilities that raised nearly $113,000 tied to the New York City Marathon last year with more than 30 runners registered. This year, despite the group’s repeated outreach through Facebook and community recruitment events, only $16,000 has been raised and a mere five runners will wear bibs for the organization.

“It’s been a tough year, to say the least,” said Alyssa Franklin, YAI’s manager of individual giving and donor communications. She added, “I’m worried we could actually lose money this year.”

The fund-raising juggernaut Team in Training has 432 runners in the New York City Marathon, compared with 542 last year. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, the American Cancer Society and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation are among several organizations that reported having fewer new charity runners this year than last. All told, of the 8,200 available charity spots for this year’s marathon, about 3,000 remain open. Organizers said they expected the total raised to be $11 million to $14 million less than last year’s.

“What’s unprecedented is being at this point in time and everything is not sold out,” said Mary Wittenberg, New York Road Runners’ chief executive, weeks before the Nov. 3 race.

Organizers in New York pushed back deadlines more than six weeks for charities. George A. Hirsch, the chairman of the board for Road Runners, the marathon organizer, said the fact that running-related fund-raising was also slumping outside New York was a concern.

“It’s very hard, I believe, to do that year after year,” he said. “You’re coming back to your same pool of friends. There’s a lot of excitement the first time you say, Will you come and contribute to me for my charity? The second and third year, I think it gets harder to do that. It’s a commitment, a real responsibility you take on to the charity.”

The Chicago Marathon this month filled its charitable spots, but some more quickly than others. The Boston Marathon, scheduled for April 21, rotates the charities involved in its programs to ensure that a fresh batch of fund-raisers regularly run the event, said Tom Grilk, the Boston Athletic Association’s executive director.

“It’s supply and demand,” he said. “We’re still under way, but clearly in light of last year’s events, people want to run.”

The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon this year and the cancellation of last year’s New York City Marathon after Hurricane Sandy may be contributing to the lower charity participation rates this year. Runners who raised money connected to last year’s New York City Marathon were guaranteed a spot this year, but were not necessarily required to raise money again.

Steven Yearwood of New York was among those who raised money last year for Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s Fred’s Team and had barely hit the halfway point of his $3,500 goal when the race was canceled. The extra year, he said, allowed him to try to gather more donations, but he is prepared to make up the difference with his own money.

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Karen Schwartzman, a breast and lung cancer survivor in Baltimore, said she planned to walk this year’s marathon and raise $4,000 for a cancer-related charity. She sent social-media blasts to friends and hopes to use the proceeds from selling furniture to raise money, she said, but much of the $4,000 will come out of her pocket.

“It’s really hard,” she said. “There are so many charities, and they’re good charities, but it’s hard for people.”

Charity running was largely pioneered by the London Marathon and gained popularity in the United States in the mid-1990s, expanding along with a boom in registrations for distance-running events. The New York City Marathon founder Fred Lebow loathed the practice of charity running, but a team bearing his name was started after his death in 1994.

Today, the charity slots at in-demand races like New York have become anchors for the positive atmosphere organizers and sponsors hope to create at the event, vehicles for visibility and cause-related marketing. In New York, the number of charity runners has roughly doubled in the last six years and ballooned to include 324 charitable organizations.

That has made being an exclusive partner for a popular event a premium, said Alicia O’Neill, director of endurance events at the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. The foundation will still send 100 runners to New York’s starting line this year, but 20 of them were carried over from last year.

She said that she was trying to diversify the charity’s fund-raising opportunities, including partnerships with Iron Man Lake Placid and the Empire State Building Run-Up.

“We’re trying to keep it interesting for people,” she said.

While there are many repeat runners, getting repeat fund-raisers may be part of what is exhausting the model, said Patrick Rooney, an associate dean at Indiana University’s School of Philanthropy.

“We could be looking at a reversal in the mind-set around these events,” he said. “I don’t think it will go away, but it may stabilize at a level, compared with the dramatic growth we’ve seen over the years.”

Even successful fund-raisers may be burned out on travel costs associated with charity running. Joanne Jardine of Scotland raised money for last year’s New York City Marathon to benefit a foundation aimed at helping disabled athletes, but she decided not to run this year’s race.

“It was purely financial,” she said. “I just couldn’t afford to get there from Scotland and have to raise the funds again.”

Barbara LaVallee, who leads the Brain Tumor Foundation’s team, said that it was “definitely more work” to fill the organization’s 20 spots for this year. Ultimately, the Foundation ended up with six still open.

“Every year, it seems like it multiplies exponentially how many charities there are out there,” she said. “There are a ton of organizations out there.”

A version of this article appears in print on October 25, 2013, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hitting the Wall: For Marathon Charities, Numbers Are Slowing. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe